"Shooter Genre at an Important Fork in the Road" says Starhawk Developer

"My instincts say that the shooter genre is at a very important fork in the road," Mr. Jobe to Gamasutra. "It can continue to go down the same linear, blockbuster path or it can take a different approach. That's not to say that Starhawk is taking the right approach, but I think the genre is due for a next step."

More, now, on Mr. Jobe's critique of the current state of shooters:

"Right now, so much of the shooter genre is just a linear consumption of blockbuster moments."

"Honestly, I don't know if this is what players want. Right now, you could argue that doing more of the same works, because people are selling a lot of product and their online numbers are still really good. But personally, I feel that we at Lightbox just want to try something new."

"This is our attempt at taking the shooter genre into somewhere fresh."

Along those lines, Starhawk, a PS3 space western shooter, is attempting to give the player lots of options, a strategy that extends to the game's single-player campaign.

"The challenge in developing [Starhawk's single player] was that players can do things in so many different ways. You can try to recommend that players take a certain course of action, but as we saw in playtests, players won't always do what you want them to do — they'll go and do their own thing."

"We eventually got to a point where five people would sit down to do a playtest, and all five people would take different approaches to the missions," Mr. Jobe said. "To me, I think that's a very successful moment, especially now, given the shooter genre."

Agree with Mr. Jobe's assessment that the shooter genre is getting too linear? Disagree? You'll have a chance to vote with your wallet soon; Starhawk hits the marketplace May 8 in North America and May 11 in Europe.

For more on Starhawk and Lightbox's development of it, head on over to Gamasutra.